The popularity of the Internet, coupled with the increasing capabilities of personal/mobile electronic devices, has provided consumers with the ability to enjoy multimedia content almost anytime and anywhere. For example, live (e.g., sports events) and video on demand (VOD) content (e.g., television shows and movies) can be streamed via the Internet to personal electronic devices (e.g., computers, mobile phones, and Internet-enabled televisions).
For example, content can be streamed from a content source to a destination device. Due to the variety of device types, device sizes, and encoding technologies available to consumers, making a particular content item available for streaming may involve storing multiple replicas of the content item (each replica specific to a device type, a device size, and/or an encoding technology). Storage and management of the replicas may be further complicated when adaptive streaming is supported. Adaptive streaming enables a media player to request different versions of a media stream in response to changes in network conditions. To support adaptive streaming, each replicated version of a content item may be broken down into multiple parts that are key frame aligned. Thus, to offer adaptive streaming of a single content item to multiple types of devices, a content provider may need to store and manage hundreds or even thousands of files.